In Defense of Sexy Lumberjane Greta de Parry

By
Jessica Herman

Mar 22, 2013

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You've heard of lumberjacks. Now meet lumberjane Greta de Parry, a sexy Chicago-based woodworker with long blonde locks, a perfectly fit body (when is someone going to invent the lumberjack workout?), and a stunning face with remarkable cheek bones.

The 29-year-old frequently Instagrams herself working in the shop and going out on the town. But the pictures on de Parry's website aren't glamour shots: She's leaning over the table saw and walking through the fields in tight tanks and torn jeans and actually sawing, hammering and sanding the hell out of rough tables and concrete stools.

So, why then, is GdP, as she's lovingly nicknamed, attracting haters?

The other day a woodworking-themed podcast, Wood Talk, posed the question, "Is GdP hurting or empowering women in her field by using sex appeal as a marketing tool?" Commenters personally attacked de Parry, writing nasty comments about her looks, the quality of her craftsmanship, even her sense of humor (she's all about wood-related puns like "son of a birch" and "I Tree'd My Mind" in her tweets and Instagrams). They wrote that she sounded like a bimbo, and they described what they wanted to do with "their wood" and her behind. Gross.

"My natural reaction is to say why can't you let your work stand on its own?" Wood Talk host Marc Spagnuolo told Cosmopolitan.com. "She's welcome to do whatever she wants to give herself a leg up...but if she were my daughter, I might give her a different piece of advice."

De Parry posted a picture of herself and Wood Talk's criticism to her Instagram. At least 40 people chimed in on her feed, urging her to disregard the suggestion that she's misusing her sex appeal as a marketing tool. But it was clear that this strong woman who's been forging her own path through her twenties was shaken and unsure of what to do with this response.

"It was pretty shocking and upsetting what people were saying," de Parry told Cosmopolitan.com, noting that she exists in an incredibly nurturing artistic community in Chicago and has never encountered this type of response. "I also got something like 700 new Facebook likes," she added.

She talked about the hundreds of Google alerts she received—lewd comments on lumberjack forums (yep, they exist) and nasty notes, mostly from men, she says. But she also mentioned the positive emails, largely from young women pursuing similar paths. There were a lot of "you go, girl" messages from women who see de Parry as a modern day Rosie the Riveter.

"It's made me think twice about how I want to put myself out there," she said. But she's not planning on changing anything about the way she presents herself, the way she dresses or the light-hearted punny way she talks about her work online. She's also going to remember that the public de Parry is a persona. And she can't get bogged down by the haters.

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"If someone says I use my sexuality to market my craft, so be it," said de Parry. "Those types of comments are familiar to any woman that is carving a niche in a male-dominated industry. Like the trees I use in my craft, my strength lies in my roots. I think I'm more of a feminist now than I ever was."